Project overview · 2029 → 10,000
What this is
NEON DRIFT SAGA is a suspense science-fiction saga about the future, accelerated by AI but still plausible, running from 2029 to the year 10,000. It is being made in three forms.
A serialised novel
Told in seasons. Season 1 is being written now, one chapter at a time.
Episodes · One per chapterAn animated series
An animated episode for each chapter, in line art and light, with narration and an original score.
The Drift · Out nowScreensavers, themes and visions
The animations the saga grew from, made for your screens: a screensaver to download, phone themes soon, and short visions of the future.
Later · A reader-choice version, where readers steer their characters' decisions, is planned for later.
The question
Does acceleration save us or drown us?
Rivals who still distrust each other keep choosing to share the floor they all stand on. Compete on the surface. Share the foundation.
Season 1 · 2029–2058
Ignition
In July 2029, the night before the world meets the first machine that truly learns, a data centre at the edge of the Arctic catches fire. A night-shift engineer walks into the smoke to save it, and sees something in the numbers that doesn't add up. Season 1 follows her and the founders, rivals and leaders around her for thirty years, from that fire to the first permanent base at the Moon's south pole.
- Chapters
- 40, in nine arcs
- Voice
- Close third person, one character's point of view per chapter
- Endings
- Every chapter ends on a question
- Length
- About 1200–2400 words each
- Published so far
- 10 of 40 chapters
The nine arcs
Reykjanes
A fire, a launch, and a song nobody taught the machine.
Assembly
Robots build robots. Then the lights go out.
Neon Rain
Air taxis in the rain, and a festival of light over a lagoon.
Gate
Two superpowers, one phone call.
Monsoon
Thirty million people, one storm.
Undertow
A manifesto the whole world reads.
Tide
A spaceport on the sea.
Rock
Something in the sky.
Shackleton
The Moon.
No faces. Each person is a line drawing in their own colour, as they are in the film.
The people
Also in Season 1: the leaders of the United States, China, India and the African Union, all fictional, and a girl from Ayla's past named Ilse.
Beyond Season 1
Some of the people you meet in 2029 will still matter in the year 10,000.
How it's made
Where it stands →Story bible
The world, its rules and its people.
Season outline
Every arc and chapter, in order.
Draft and test readers
Each chapter is drafted, then read by three simulated test readers: one reads for pace, one for depth, one hunts for plot holes. Then it is revised and read again.
Visual beat sheet
The chapter as a sequence of shots.
Animated episode
Line art and light, with narration and an original score.
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